Sunday, November 18, 2012

A lot of people were inspired by candidate and then President Obama. I was one of them. After watching him gain momentum in the primaries in 2008, thanks to his position on the war in Iraq, and then defeating Hillary Clinton and Senator McCain, I watched him squander the most political capital that a person could hope for.

I watched again and again, issue after issue, the president not only cede negotiating positions to the Republican party, but never even had starting points in negotiations that his supporters imagined he would. The key word here is "imagined".

I had never imagined that we were on the brink of a true universal health care system. I just thought he might at least bring it up. I never imagined that he would truly bring U.S.troops home from Iraq. I just didn't think he would actually try to extend the deadline that Bush had set. The one thing that I did expect him to do he did. He did allow unlimited travel to Cuba by people with relatives there. But unfortunately, he has maintained all of the programs that we spend millions of dollars on to undermine the Cuban government. I think it would be easier than most people think to go a lot farther and establish relations with Cuba since the times of Kennedy. There would be no personal political risk, which of course is the main calculation in the minds of politicians like him.

But what we are witnessing this week should turn the stomachs of decent people. The absolutely unbalanced military pounding being applied to the Palestinian people in Gaza. Hamas apparently has a military wing because its chief was assassinated by an Israeli air strike earlier this week, but I've not seen any images of an actual Palestinian military. Rockets and some machine guns can hardly be called a military in today's world and anyone who tries to claim that the fight is balanced is simply lying.

Watching Obama's administration answer the questions of violence by Israel by stating that they stand by Israel's right to defend themselves, as if the violent occupiers have been sucker punched and become victims by the people they seem to be determined to occupy. It's disgusting and disgraceful. It's also why Israel acts as disconnected to reality as the Obama administration when the United Nations votes to condemn the embargo of Cuba... another embarrassing stance that Obama decides to stick with.

Obama inspired me and these are events that reinforce my certainty. He inspired me to finally un-register from the Democrat party, which I had already believed for some time had not been a good fit for me. He also inspired me to vote for the Green party candidate for president on November 6 of this year.

He has done so much as president to have left me quite inspired. Hopefully others will be inspired too. For that I say to President Obama, "Great job."